Sunday, January 24, 2021

2nd piece from Jungian Art Expression workshop


Big head, little body. Continuing the theme of the relationship of inside/outside with the inside escaping to the outside. Or is it visa versa? 

Saturday, January 23, 2021

3 Monkeys

Took a class today in Jungian Art Expression. And thinking about those who are sick. And not being able to help.

Sunday, January 17, 2021

Last pieces


To Kim Mosley’s “Last Pieces”

The crow who makes a nest of the world looks for colors from the heart left behind on picnic tables or trailed behind careless pedestrians. He flaps down to the grime of a sidewalk and caws in triumph, Here’s a treasure! Memories of sunsets, a scrap of Jamaica turquoise against white sand, a bonfire of bodies shuddering in bed and the dull of oxblood as habit sets in, pencilled love notes, sweat-stained apologies, burnt bridges, frown lines and quirked-up dimples, twigs that scraped against kitchen windows and bedroom blinds, pleading Let me in, I’ll do anything if you let me stay! It’s a midden of a nest, and it steams with the ache of a thousand families, hums sometimes with Happy Birthday, with tears swallowed at Auld Lang Syne and the That’s Our Song of forty different couples. Reproving sniffs, eye-raised ecstasy, malice like a brown slug. A cattle dog’s bark is caught in the corner by somebody’s sob and a whisper It’ll be all right—hang on till I can get there. Once, There’s nothing you can do that would make me not love you—rarest of all and gleaming. People don’t drop those like a crumb from a sandwich. 

Last Pieces


To Kim Mosley’s “Last Pieces”

The crow who makes a nest of the world looks for colors from the heart left behind on picnic tables or trailed behind careless pedestrians. He flaps down to the grime of a sidewalk and caws in triumph, Here’s a treasure! Memories of sunsets, a scrap of Jamaica turquoise against white sand, a bonfire of bodies shuddering in bed and the dull of oxblood as habit sets in, pencilled love notes, sweat-stained apologies, burnt bridges, frown lines and quirked-up dimples, twigs that scraped against kitchen windows and bedroom blinds, pleading Let me in, I’ll do anything if you let me stay! It’s a midden of a nest, and it steams with the ache of a thousand families, hums sometimes with Happy Birthday, with tears swallowed at Auld Lang Syne and the That’s Our Song of forty different couples. Reproving sniffs, eye-raised ecstasy, malice like a brown slug. A cattle dog’s bark is caught in the corner by somebody’s sob and a whisper It’ll be all right—hang on till I can get there. Once, There’s nothing you can do that would make me not love you—rarest of all and gleaming. People don’t drop those like a crumb from a sandwich. 

Sunday, January 10, 2021

Waves again


 In a sense, “impermanence” and “I will die” are contradictory. That’s why we say there is “no birth and no death.” There is only change. And actually it may be more a continual recreation than it is a slight alteration. You know Lavoisiet’s discovery that mass is neither created or destroyed in chemical reactions. That seems to suggest that “no birth and no death” is not just a pipe dream, but the nature of our world. 

What I’m trying to figure out is who are we, anyway. If none of our physical matter remains after 7 years (I think that is now questioned) then who is Kim? If we’ve been married for 51 years, what (or who?) is it that has been married for 51 years?

I keep making photos and then tearing them up and reassembling them. Sometimes I throw away a scrap because it is too small to work with. I do that with a little sadness. But that scrap gets recycled by the city of Austin into dirt, so not all is lost. 

Saturday, January 9, 2021

In the happiest of seasons...

Numbers 35:17 "Or if anyone is holding a stone and strikes someone a fatal blow with it, that person is a murderer; the murderer is to be put to death." (You might read this as a defense of capital punishment. I don't see it as that. More it is about the inevitability of karma—that our intention is not a defense when we engage in dangerous behavior.)

Sunday, January 3, 2021

More complicated! (blog.kimmosley.com)


Now To Kim Mosley’s “More complicated!”

The day comes at you.
“Look at me!” it says,
bursting with sunlight and blossom,
making it almost impossible to see
the dirt below the forsythia—
yellow banging at your eyelids—
the pink of tulips, blue of Mexican tile
calling, No, me! Me! I’m the prettiest!

It wakes you up early, the day calling out, hello!
You didn’t really want to sleep, did you?
and keeps you buzzing—a coffee of a day
and three-margarita dance floor jumble in the evening.

When you stumble home at last,
there’s a moment of can I read myself to sleep?
and oh, did I forget ...

But wasn’t it fun, lost in the pretty bauble of the day,
the disco-ball of the night sending
shivers of light over everyone’s makeup?
and just one quiet dream deep in the dark
asking, where have I gone?

Sarah Webb

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Gloomy day


I made a video of me making this piece because someone asked how I did it. Here it is: https://youtu.be/57QgjWhgB80

New Year’s Eve

We don’t usually stay up until midnight. We watch the NYC ball drop at 11 our time, and then turn in for the night. We don’t have any problem with NYC beating us to the draw. But tonight at 630pm I received a voice message from 2021… from Europe. How could that be? I thought, a voice from the future. I felt way behind, like my spaceship was stuck in the past and I was hearing from the future. And now the futures are sleeping. At the same time I was corresponding with a cousin in California. Their sun hadn’t sat yet.

I’ve spent countless hours at the seashore counting waves. You see, when the tide is coming in, every 7th wave comes in. The others don’t make it all the way. And this is all because of the moon. I was never told why. And then, that damn Internet. Some oceanographer from UCSD claims that the ocean isn’t that smart, that the ocean can’t count, and none of this fantasy about seven is the effect of the moon but rather the wind. I know we have an epidemic of not believing in science. I believe science except when it contradicts my experience. Then I just say to myself that the so-called scientist should have spent more time on the sea shore and less time thinking.

This might be the 11th year for our weekly writing group. One of my weaknesses is not being able to quit. If it has to do with art, especially. Some people don’t do groups. I start to waste time without parameters. I regulate much of my life. I drink 8oz of coffee a day. I think I might have cheated the other day and took an ounce more, but usually it is just 8 ounces. It is that or the whole pot… and then I don’t sleep well, and my marriage goes on the rocks because Mensa goes for some coffee and there is none. So now she knows what I’ll do and all is well.

This year a zebra joined our household. This is a highly particular zebra, as zebras go, and it insists on sleeping on our bed. Luckily it doesn’t mind if we plop on top of her so room in the bed isn’t a problem. But the dark strips on the zebra, being full of pigment, mark up our sheets… so I told zebra that she needs to leave the stripes on the floor. What, she said, do you want me to be naked? Well, we now have perimeters for that too. We turn off the lights, close the shutters, close our eyes, and then zebra carefully bundles all her stripes in a neat pile… on the floor…before crawling under the covers.

P.S. Someone asked if the zebra story was a dream. Of course not, I answered.

Reflections on Talks on Buddha's Lists

During a recent Appamada Intensive our students gave talks on Buddha's lists. Here are my reflections on their talks.